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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23062834">Juno Steel and the knife in the dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melanie_D_Peony/pseuds/Melanie_D_Peony'>Melanie_D_Peony</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Between Seasons/Series, Blood, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, POV First Person, Partial Nudity, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Season/Series 02, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Swearing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:34:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,226</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23062834</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melanie_D_Peony/pseuds/Melanie_D_Peony</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Juno Steel didn't expect to see him again. Not after he'd left him in that hotel room. But when Peter Nureyev shows up on his doorstep, injured, Juno realises - there's nothing he wouldn't do for this man.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>110</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Juno Steel and the knife in the dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a work of fan fiction. The author does not own any of these characters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hyperion City. Not as much of a sink or swim kind of place as a swim and die either way type. No amount of flailing will keep you afloat around here, it merely prolongs the pain of drowning. </p><p>Today the city did its best to hold me under and I planned a marathon, two bottle wallowing to make up for it. But my plans were derailed before my fingers could touch the lightswitch, as a voice with an all too familiar drawl called out from the dark. </p><p>'Juno Steel. Fancy running into you here.' </p><p>Would have been a great line, really. Save from one tiny detail.</p><p>'This is <em> my apartment</em>, Nureyev.' </p><p>I clicked the light on, and alas, loitering by the wall of my ratty flat was the man himself. </p><p>Seeing him in there had the same effect as if someone had fired a laser blaster at my chest from a very, very short range. The air around Peter Nureyev always felt supercharged and I began to associate the smell of his cologne with a purple Martian sandstorm a long time ago. The fact that I left him did nothing to mitigate the profound effect he had on me. I had to do that myself, walking up to him, cramming confrontation into every fiber of my body. But Nureyev seemed unfazed and slightly distracted as he stared back at me. </p><p>'Why, that's true, isn't it?' He asked with a weak subterfuge of his usual smile and with his knees giving out he began to slide to the floor, leaving a snail trail of a bloodstain on my wall.</p><p>'Nureyev!' I heard my own scared wail and I threw myself on the ground beside him. I clawed at his suit, unthinking, to see the damage we were dealing with. I hissed at the sight of the puncture wound on his abdomen, left by a six inch blade, that bled freely on my floor. I fought back my nausea. I have no problem with blood, honest. I just prefer it on the inside. </p><p>I forced Nureyev's lolling head up, his eyes to focus on me.</p><p>'Who did this to you?' I demanded and the roughness in my voice had an almost tangible edge, like the rasping martian dust that seeped to every corner of this goddamned city </p><p>'An old fence of mine,' he panted. 'had just realised that she could increase her profit margin drastically if only she got rid of her middle man.' </p><p>Referring to himself as a middle man was clearly the second most painful thing that had happened to Nureyev today. Hooking his arm around my shoulder I dragged him on his feet.</p><p>'What happened, Nureyev? Did you become too greedy to appease your fences?' It wasn't my favorite thing, teasing a wounded man, adding insult to a very literal injury, but I needed Peter Nureyev to stay on this side if consciousness and bickering seemed as good a way to achieve this as any.</p><p>'We were going to half the loot, Juno.' He managed to sound indignant despite his voice being weaker, shakier than I've ever heard it before. 'She needed cash to go planet hopping and the money I offered was going to be more than enough. I just hadn't realised that she was planning on travelling with style.' </p><p>'New planet, new clientele, she clearly had a good reason to burn some bridges.' We were stumbling towards my hydro closet and I plopped Nureyev unceremoniously on the tiled floor. Blood was pooling around him as I tugged off his boots. 'You should have known better than to make business with her.' </p><p>'Hmm… that may be.' Nureyev added noncommittally, resting the back of his head against the cool kaolit. 'But I trusted her.'</p><p>I gradually peeled the blood soaked layers of his suit and got a very good glimpse of that wound for the first time. I swore under my breath. </p><p>'We need to get you to a doctor.' I whispered, to which he responded with hoarse laughter.</p><p>'I don't know if you've noticed, Juno, but this is an awful lot of DNA for a ghost.'</p><p>He was right, of course. Peter Nureyev was a master thief and his anonymity was his best reference and strongest currency. Getting him to a medic was going to create an inconvenient paper trail and even if it only lead to one of his many aliases, it was going to be evidence. Twelve stitches and four and a half liter worth of it. </p><p>'That doesn't make me more of a qualified medic, though.' I snapped at him. <em> Congratulations, Steel. Very tactful</em>. 'I haven't the faintest idea how to attend to your cut, Nureyev.' </p><p>'Would you mind just patching me up as best as you can so I could find a place a bit more… discreet than the Hyperion City General?' </p><p>In lieu of any better plan I agreed stiffly and keyed a code in the panel on the wall with my blood slippery fingers to make the shower appear. I threw most of my layers aside myself and draped Nureyev over my body once again, stepping under the spray of piping hot water. It washed away tinged pink and for the first time ever I saw his slender frame not simply as unabashedly attractive, but a tiny bit fragile too. He was almost painfully light against me, as if the something that was making him substantial was flowing down the drain along with that horribly, horribly pink water. </p><p>Funny, if you'd asked me a little while ago whether I could stay composed while standing in the same shower as Peter Nureyev in a state of undress, my answer would have been a resounding no. Frankly, the man was like neo-methamphetamine to my system, rendering me a total junkie. But right now all I could feel was stone cold dread. I've never seen him so utterly devoid of that trademark animalistic alertness - even at ease, Nureyev had an air of danger about him like the musk of an earth-dwelling predator. But now he was simply a shadow of his own, usual self, limp even as I made an effort to clear his swollen wound, merely muttering some muffled curses into my shoulder. </p><p>'Oh, I'm sorry. I responded petulantly. 'Do you find this an uncomfortable sensation? May I suggest not getting freakin' stabbed in future?' </p><p>I know, <em> I know</em>. But I didn't want to give Nureyev the impression that he was dying on me, and as I was less of a lady and more of a stockpile of self deprecating jokes in a trench coat I could hardly start going about cooing without giving the whole damned game away. Anyway, he wheezed out a laugh against my skin at that and I thought it to be a good sign.</p><p>Except, of course, that the bleeding wouldn't stop and I ruined my best towel trying to drain it for long enough to bandage Nureyev up. Ok, my only towel, happy? Anyway, there was more blood on the outside of the gauze than on the inside by the time I finished and the man looked positively green as the result of my clumsy ministrations. I wrapped him in the loosest sleeping garments I owned and draped him over my bed with some effort - I may have been intact, strictly speaking, but I had a long day and the terror I felt was draining the remains of my reserve fast. </p><p>'I don't know how to thank you, Juno.' He muttered from the blissful dark that ensued once I killed the light. Only the stain of the pink beam from an imitation neon billboard right outside my window illuminated him now and I was becoming sick and tired of that colour rapidly. He looked vulnerable, curled around his wound on my bed and… well, not small, exactly. Just not larger than life anymore. 'Just give me a couple hours and I'll be out of your hair for good.'</p><p><em> A couple hours?! </em> He's lucky if that stab heals in a couple months. But I guess I deserved that after what I'd done.</p><p>'Geez, my flat might not be a floating mansion or a five star hotel but it can't be that bad that you want to throw yourself out if the window as soon as you climb through it.' </p><p>'I'm sorry Juno, I...' Nureyev sighed and for once the joke wasn't sitting right with him. 'I just didn't mean to… abuse your hospitality.'</p><p>I stared out at the nighttime town, trying to avoid his gaze. Would have been nice to be a smoker for once, to light up to justify the painful stretch of silence. Nureyev thought that I found his presence burdensome and he couldn't have been more wrong. All I wanted from this man was him to abuse my hospitality. I wanted his toothbrush next to mine, his shoes kicked off messily in my hall and his junk in my drawers. I had this epiphany while watching him sleep in a hotel room, along with the realisation that I won't be coming out of this with my moral backbone intact. </p><p>The city swarmed beneath me like a bustling hive, despite the awkward hour. A crowd of mayflies; here today, gone by tomorrow. Hyperion had a tendency to kill its inhabitants; if you got to die young you were of the lucky ones. Usually she preferred to poison you slowly, melt your insides and make sure that she sucked everything out of you beforehand. I looked back at his broken body on my bed, devoid of its usual cunning agility. The city clearly began her work on Nureyev too. And, as always, the good ones seemed to break faster than the rest.</p><p>I only dared to answer Nureyev when I was certain that he fell asleep. </p><p>'Take as long as you like.'</p><p>I kept looking at the Hyperion for a little while after that, trying to keep my goal in the line of my sight. My choice. Trying to remember what was that I believed to be important and why. </p><p>It was pretty hard thing to recall when my whole universe was shrinking into the sound of his shuddering snore emerging from the bed. The vision of him, pale shape against my sheets was burning in my mind through the back of my head - I didn't even have to see it, I memorised that body a long ago in one greedy gulp of a night. Tried to preserve it in amber - and the city took that too, adding a scar where there wasn't one before, tainting the memory of him even.   </p><p>Hyperion hurt him and it made me want to hurt someone in turn. <em> No </em>, an untrustworthy fence hurt him, you could argue. But it was more than that. It was an acute side effect of living in this place. It was abuse born out of being abused, the ripple of violence spreading in concentric circles. It was like radiation poisoning, living in this town. The hopelessness rewrote your DNA until you were too twisted to survive in any other habitat and the gush of fresh, free air that Peter Nureyev brought in with him through the airlock threatened to crash my lungs. When decided to turn to look at him, eventually, I was like a starving man, looking at a feast - I knew too much would certainly kill me but couldn't trust myself around something that was going to quench my need so perfectly. </p><p>I got up and circled the bed, bending over where he lay on the edge of it, leaving an inviting, crescent moon of space next to him.  A silken burial ground. If I lay down there I'll be staying forever. So I didn't. Instead, I simply touched my lips to Nureyev's forehead, a motherly gesture to sooth away the pain. </p><p><em> And aren't you glad you did, Steel? </em> His body was like smouldering coal. He was burning up with sepsis while I merey watched. I swore under my breath and staggered back to the hydro closet, summoning my medicine cabinet again. Ignoring the bloodstains. That was a thought for tomorrow. I rummaged through my first aid box instead, but I had nothing. The pills were so weak that I could have offered tree bark and a prayer in their place and the effect would have been the same. </p><p>I sunk to the floor desperately. The comm was in my hand before I could make the conscious decision to look for it and I dialled, blindly.</p><p>'Mister… Steel?' The anger in Rita's voice was gathering momentum like an ancient locomotive.</p><p>'Rita, I need you to get me a line to Sasha Wire.'</p><p>'Do you have any idea what time is it, boss?!' </p><p>'Darn, I thought it was high noon, Rita!' I feigned irritation to snap her out of her building tirade and get her to work. My assistant was a force of nature; you couldn't tame her, but you could harness her power if only you knew how. 'Of course I do. Trust me, I wouldn't dare to interrupt your beauty sleep without a very good reason.'</p><p>'It better be a matter of life and death, boss.' Rita yawned in the comm, somewhat mollified. </p><p>'I'm dying, Rita.' I was, steadily, over a long period of time. It's called living.</p><p>'Oh my gosh, Mister Steel, what can I do?' </p><p>'Call. Sasha.' </p><p>'Okay, okay.' </p><p>It took her less than a minute, once she applied herself, to get me hooked to the highly encrypted commcast of Agent W of the Dark Matters. As opposed to her, Sasha was wide awake and she wasn't merely fuming, she was already erupting like a dormant Martian volcano with a change of heart and big ambitions.</p><p>'Juno Steel.' She said, hissing and spitting on my screen. 'Do I have to spell out to you, how dangerous and highly illegal is to…'</p><p>'Let's cut to the chase, Sasha. I need a favour.'</p><p>That shut her up, instantly.</p><p>'What kind?' She barked at me.</p><p>'The kind that can deal with a six inch knife wound and the ensuing sepsis.' </p><p>'Juno.' She sighed. Ever the mother-friend, if your mother was a cold, efficient bitch. 'Is there something I need to know about?' </p><p>'Just a girls' night gone wild agent, you know how it is. Anyway, have you got some semi magical Dark Matters tech for me or not?'</p><p>'That tech is expensive, Juno.'</p><p>'No kidding, Saha. That's why I'm talking to you and not to my local pharmacist.' I bit back some irritation and continued with a voice more level. 'I'll owe you one.'</p><p>'I never would have imagined that you'd want to endebt yourself to Dark Matters of all people.'</p><p>'The imminent threat of perishing kinda puts your scruples and principles as such into perspective.' I spat back.</p><p>'Funny. I had the impression that you'd be welcoming the sweet release of death.' </p><p>That was the comment that made me understand, she knew I wasn't seeking treatment for myself.</p><p>'I'm complex like that. Don't try to get me.' I whispered, mouth suddenly dry as the rush hour smog in Old Town. </p><p>And as sign of her quickly depleting goodwill, she didn't press the matter. But she didn't say much else either. Just sat there. Watching with an unnerving intensity.</p><p>'Sooo… do we have a deal?' I asked, feeling the rush of my pulse in the glands in my throat. My life wasn't worth half the price of the merch I was asking for. That wasn't a matter of self worth issues, it was simply a fact. A sharp shooter's eyes and a detectives wit can only save that many people. The stuff the Dark Matters R&amp;D department churned out on a daily basis could topple that number ten times over. Therefore, it was infinitely more valuable. I was, instead, banking on the fact that Sasha and I were childhood pals. And that meant real lousy odds, because I watched Agent W drown out Sasha Wire as she was initiated in her new position in a set of murderous trials. But you gamble with what you have, never mind your chances.</p><p>'Fine.' Sasha hissed eventually. 'But it will cost you dearly, Juno.'</p><p>'What doesn't, Sasha?' </p><p>'The courier should be there in half an hour.' She growled and broke the line before I could thank her. She probably thought that I shouldn't be grateful.</p><p>See, life in Hyperion is like the knick knacks on the shelves in Old Town. Cheap. Mass produced. Superfluous. You might be starting to get why did I refuse to drag Nureyev into mine. My type of existence, it was fragile, nonessential. Replaceable. Certainly something that paled in comparison to the one he built in the outer systems. No, Nureyev had a fair share of living from one day to another, from meal to meal, of stretching his lifespan and carving a space for himself in the world inch by painful inch when he was younger. He decided to leave that all behind and... What? I was going to drag him straight back into it? I didn't think so. I mean, what did I have to offer in turn? A claustrophobic flat and the pleasure of chasing the next paycheck and the next one? The grand meals of synthetic whisky on an empty stomach when business was slow? A bed, barely wide enough for two, to share with a detective with a remarkable failure rate and a body count higher than most Martian pestilence?</p><p>Yeah, sure. Dream on, Steel. </p><p>So I snuck back to the bedroom and positioned myself on the windowsill, watching out for the Dark Matters courier. I never saw him crossing the street to my flat. Hell, I don't even know how he entered the building 'cause I surely didn't buzz him in. Though, I prefer it that way, ultimately. All I can tell that suddenly he was there like an apparition, knocking on my door. Trademark, homegrown Dark Matters agent. The same buzzcut, the same nondescript features, sporting a smile that was more uniform than his gear as he handed the smooth leather pouch over to me. I fully expected him to evaporate in a blink when the deal was done, but instead, he took the stairs. You know, like a mortal would.  </p><p>I was too tightly wound to watch him go. I put the door in and opened the bag with shaking fingers. Inside, something that looked like a large, flesh coloured plaster. It was stuck to thin film of paper with the instructions printed on it with a piktogramm that was simple enough even for an agent to decipher. Looked like I just had to drape it over the wound.</p><p>So I shook Nureyev up, because I somehow knew that this wasn't going go be pleasant therefore I didn't want to ambush him. </p><p>'Hey, hey.' I tried to use my kindest voice, not that I had one. But It came out sounding slightly less prickly and agitated than my usual, so that was a success. He stirred and fumbled blindly for my fingers, only half conscious, in clear a display of his only fatal flaw - always trusting the wrong kind of guy. 'I've got something that will make you better.' </p><p>'Oh' he huffed, lips still slightly sealed with sickly sleep. 'that's good.' </p><p>'Yeah, real great.' I chuckled without mirth. 'But… Nureyev?'</p><p>'Yes, Juno?'</p><p>'It's gonna hurt like a bitch.' </p><p>That was about all the warning I intended to give. I pulled the gauze away from his abdomen in one swift motion and gagged when I felt it stretch where it clinged stubbornly to the open flesh. Nureyev whimpered and squirmed under my hand, but I held his hip firmly down. We were both sweating and shaking by the time I finished and even in the dim light it was clear that some of the sterile cotton was still stuck in the cut. But I decided that the smart little gizmo will have to deal with that and plastered it over the wound. This time Nureyev barely made a sound and I hoped that the tech was pumping industrial strength painkillers in him already. </p><p>I sunk to the floor by the side of the bed, glad for the rhythm of his breath on my hair. Fast asleep again. And that was the moment my comm decided to act up, its sharp, tingling sound slicing the thin veil of silence in a half, shredding it completely. I doubted that Nureyev would wake to the noise, but scrambled for the phone, panicked, anyway. </p><p>'What?' Having to whisper made my anger way less pronounced than I would have preferred. </p><p>It was Rita on the line and she was crying.</p><p>'Miste-eh-eh-er S-Steel?' </p><p>
  <em> Juno, you asshole. </em>
</p><p>'I'm fine Rita.' I turned slightly to contemplate Nureyev's features. He looked about two decades younger like this, teenage revolutionary all over again. Hurt, but as safe as can be. For now. 'I'll live.'</p><p>Ma' had a nickname for us, Ben and me. She called us her little monsters and for years I renounced the endearment with hatred. But it suddenly felt befitting, in this unlikely room. Because a greedy, hungry part of me, the part that cared for nothing but itself, was <em> happy </em>to have Nureyev here, despite everything, all the pain, all the hurt that it took.</p><p>It was the same, disdainful part that felt just a tiny bit good, a tiny bit vindicated by Rita's bitter sobs.</p><p>'Oh, thank Heavens.' She produced the kind of sniff that created interference in my comm's speakers. Then tears were gone from her voice, replaced by stern fondness. 'Don't you dare ever doing that to me again, boss.'</p><p>I smiled, despite myself.</p><p>'No chance, Rita. I'm sorry.'</p><p>'Good. Care to tell me what happened, boss?' </p><p>'Maybe later. I need to sleep.' </p><p>That wasn't a lie either. I felt shattered, drained, exhausted. As if now, that I pawned my life to Dark Matters, I had nothing left to give.</p><p>'Talk to you in the morning then, Mr Steel.' There was a gentleness to my assistant's voice as she bid goodbye. I lay down on the floor and wrapped it around myself. </p><p>'It is the morning, Rita.' I threw it in there before I hung up. </p><p>I must have only closed my eyes for a few seconds, but it was light when I woke. I woke to being hoisted from the floor, to being raised in someone's arms. I could vaguely remember the strange gravity of the sensation from when I was younger. No one held me like this in a very long time. It felt like it rattled something loose in my chest. At least that's what I thought, based on the pain. </p><p>'Oh, Juno,' Nureyev whispered against the top of my head. 'what have you done?' </p><p>I was too hazy to understand what he'd meant and simply curled around myself in defense as he lay me on my bed.</p><p>'This tech, it must have cost you a fortune.'</p><p>'Someone owed me a favour.' I lied reflexively in my cushion.</p><p>'I sure hope that's true.' Nureyev did not sound convinced.</p><p>I opened my eyes, still full of sleep, just enough to see him sliding the window open. He let in a gust of air, diffusing the perfume of his cologne, replacing it with a mixture of diesel fumes, rot and the faint notes of the cherry tree, blossoming right outside my apartment. He was still present, but already half gone. He had one leg draped over the sill, touching the fire escape when I called out.</p><p>'I'm sorry, Nureyev.' </p><p>He paused, the turned around. He came back to the bed and planted a chaste kiss in my hair. </p><p>'You don't have to apologise.'</p><p>He went to the window and I knew that all it took for him to stay in this stinking, miasmic city of dirty criminals and even dirtier cops was a word from me. </p><p>My name is Juno Steel and I actually had two parents, believe it or not. My father, whom I never met, still taught me one important lesson. It goes like this: when the going gets tough, it's best you leave. So I said nothing as Nureyev made his escape and simply smiled in my bedding before I fell back to sleep.</p><p>I woke again to the miriad mouthed wail of the horns of hovercrafts. The midday congestion was building slowly up under my open window. I rolled to my back and stared at the sunlight, spilled over my ceiling, feeling light headed and not just from exhaustion. My mother's advice was such; if your life worth nothing put the price tag of someone else's on it. I traded mine for Peter's and…</p><p>It felt good.</p><p>I walked to the window, yawning and stretching, getting a mouthful of the anxiety of a million lives that rose upwards like petrol fumes. Most people on Mars had nothing. Nothing but themselves and each other and a promise of a new day each morning. And, while I felt disgustingly sappy for thinking so, I found  that infinitely more preferable to all the riches the universe had to offer. So I closed the window and turned to get ready. </p><p>Hyperion City was a demanding mistress and it commanded me to attend to her.</p>
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